ABSTRACT
Even though many members of Scandinavian elites were prominent in the formation of the early Rus’ polity and most likely held close links to the Scandinavian motherland, the nature of the extant sources seldom allows us to throw light on such links. Details in the Paterikon of the Kievan Caves Monastery, however, provide us with a rare example of a family or clan of Scandinavian origin whose career in Rus’ can be followed in several generations and may also, as is done here, be tentatively be linked to a powerful clan in Scandinavia, the Hlaðir earls. The chapter investigates the clan against a background of extended kinship webs which linked dynasties and aristocracies across what can be labeled the Scandinavian commonwealth, occasionally branching out into the Byzantine imperial family. This kinship web reveals a multitude of links of which we are seldom aware. These links helped in accumulating social capital that proved useful when individual rulers or magnates in one part of the commonwealth met with problems at home and had to activate an available exit option to seek asylum in another part.
